The latest startling statement on this subject comes from, of course, the wonderland of the world, America. In a recently published journal it is said that a scientific metallurgist there has succeeded in producing absolutely pure gold, which stands all tests, from silver. Needless to say, if this were true, at all events the much vexed hi-metallic question would be solved at once and for all time. It is now admitted by all specialists that the royal metal, though differing in material respects in its mode of occurrence from its useful but more plebeian brethren of the mineral kingdom, has yet been deposited under similar conditions from mineral salts held in solution. The first mode of obtaining this much desired metal was doubtless by washing the sand of rivers which flowed through auriferous strata. Some of these, such as the Lydian stream, Pactolus, were supposed to renew their golden stores miraculously each year. What really happened was that the winter floods detached portions of auriferous drift from the banks, which, being disintegrated by the rush and flow of the water, would naturally deposit in the still reaches and eddies any gold that might be contained therein. The mode of washing was exactly that carried on by the natives in some districts of Africa to-day. A wooden bowl was partly filled with auriferous sand and mud, and, standing knee-deep in the stream, the operator added a little water, and caused the contents of the bowl to take a circular motion, somewhat as the modern digger does with his tin dish, with this difference, that his ancient prototype allowed the water and lighter particles to escape over the rim as he swirled the stuff round and round. I presume, in finishing the operation, he collected the golden grains by gently lapping the water over the reduced material, much as we do now. I have already spoken of the mode in which auriferous lode-stuff was treated in early times--i.e., by grinding between stones. This is also practised in Africa to-day, and we have seen that the Koreans, with Mongolian acuteness, have gone a step farther, and pulverise the quartz by rocking one stone on another. In South America the arrastra is still used, which is simply the application of horse or mule power to the stone-grinding process, with use of mercury. The principal sources of the gold supply of the modern world have been, first, South America, Transylvania in Europe, Siberia in Asia, California in North America, and Australia. Africa has always produced gold from time immemorial. The later development in the Johannesburg district, Transvaal, which has absorbed during the last few years so many millions of English capital, is now, after much difficulty and disappointment--thanks to British pluck and skill--producing splendidly. The yield for 1896 was 2,281,874 ounces--a yield never before equalled by lode-mining from one field.